


Lonely Too Long

by Passions



Category: A Song of Ice and Fire - George R. R. Martin, Game of Thrones (TV)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Modern Setting, F/M, First Dates, chance encounters can have a huge impact, if you've ever seen the first dates tv show, pretty much a lot of fluff realistically, this is that
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2016-06-28
Updated: 2016-06-28
Packaged: 2018-07-18 18:50:48
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,993
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/7326277
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Passions/pseuds/Passions
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>It's been a while since Sansa ended her terrible relationship with Joffrey and when Valentine's Day comes up, Arya and Gendry, helped along by some alcohol, think it would be a great idea to sign her up for a new dating service in town. </p>
<p>Sansa is not nearly as convinced that this is a good plan.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Lonely Too Long

The café Arya had asked to meet at was a quaint one with good coffee, a wonderfully diverse selection of teas, and the most delicious lemon cakes Sansa had found so far in Montreal. The exposed brick walls and little electric fireplace left the atmosphere of the shop warm and cozy, but Sansa definitely could have done without all of the Valentine’s decorations. The blackboard that listed the menu had a drawing of two coffee cups side-by-side, the steam curling up from them creating a heart, and another drawing of two cats curled around each other. The art was really quite good, but Sansa didn’t exactly need the reminder of how single she was.

Aside from the artwork and the love songs playing softly over the speakers though, the little shop was sweet with lots of comfy chairs and big windows to make the most of the weak February sunlight. Radiators lent some much needed warmth and the whole open room smelled absolutely divine, all coffee and sugar.

One of Arya’s friends owned the place, someone Sansa had only ever heard her sister refer to as ‘Hot Pie’. He was a pastry chef and very good at what he did if the treats in the glass window by the counter were any indication. Sansa unwrapped her scarf from her neck and shook it out as she made her way up to the barista and ordered a hazelnut coffee and one of the lemon cakes that she was so fond of. She settled in at a small round table with a plush armchair on either side and pulled out her phone while she waited for her younger sister. Typical of Arya to be late to a meeting she had requested herself.

Sansa pulled up her email to see if anything interesting had come in. She wasn’t expecting anything much on a Sunday afternoon but it was always worthwhile to check. There was nothing from any of her regular contacts but there was one new message sitting in her inbox from something called _The Lion’s Den _. Frowning, she opened up the message.__

The top of the letterhead repeated the name, _The Lion’s Den _, this time with a subtitle:_ Fine Dining for First Dates_ by _The Golden Touch Agency _. There was a stylized lion’s head logo next to the name and suddenly Sansa remembered seeing it on tv. Originally just a dating agency,_ Golden Touch_ had opened a restaurant which offered its services for the first dates of couples matched through the agency. Recently they had created a reality show about dating which followed different couples each week as they came to the restaurant looking for love.

Sansa enjoyed watching the show anytime she caught it; it was cute and always respectful of everyone who came in regardless of age or body shape or sexuality, and it always gave her hope that love could be out there for everyone. But she couldn’t imagine why she would have an email from them. She skipped past the French version of the letter and started in on the English. As she came to the end of the missive it became clear why she had received it and given that Arya had been unusually insistent on meeting today, Sansa had some idea of who exactly was responsible for the email informing her that _The Golden Touch Agency_ had received her application and would be contacting her within the next week with information about possible matches.

As if those thoughts had summoned her, Arya dropped into the seat across from Sansa, plunking her cappuccino down in front of her. Sansa forestalled any greeting Arya might have given by holding up her phone, the email still clearly visible on the screen. “So. Is this what you wanted to talk about?” She couldn’t seem to stop the hurt she felt from putting a strain in her voice.

Arya seemed to deflate a little, slumping back into her chair and fiddling with the black and white scarf around her neck. Only a moment passed before the bravado was back and she sat forward again.

“Look, we probably shouldn’t have done that without your permission.”

“Probably?” Sansa glared at her younger sister.

Arya sighed. “Gendry and I were drunk last night and we thought it would be a good idea. It’s Valentine’s Day! We wanted to bring the love! Look, in the light of day I agree, we shouldn’t have gone behind your back. BUT. I still think it would be good for you.” She groaned and let her head fall back against her chair, rubbing her hands over her face. “I’m no good with emotions, Sansa. That’s your bag of tricks, not mine. But I know you’re not happy. Joffrey was an absolute prick and I don’t blame you for not wanting to trust another guy after what he did, and if you didn’t ever want to date anyone again I’d totally get it. But I’ve seen the way you look at Gendry and me, and Ric and Shireen, hell, even mom and dad and that’s just gross.” She sat up properly and rolled her eyes. “And don’t even get me started on Robb and Jeyne and their little snot monsters. You practically have hearts in your eyes anytime you look at the twins. You want a relationship, you’re just scared.”

Well. That was a lot more than Sansa had been expecting to hear, and downright miserable to boot. Was this really how her friends and family saw her? Moping around, jealously longing after their relationships because she didn’t have her own anymore? She frowned and crossed her arms tightly around herself, trying to ward off a chill though the café was no colder than it had been a moment ago. “Do you blame me?”

“Ugh, no.” Arya ran a hand through her short, dark hair. “I just said that, didn’t I? Of course I don’t blame you. Joffrey was awful. I’m just trying to say that, I don’t know, I’m trying to help you. This way it’s someone else’s job to weed out the assholes. And if it goes badly you can just blame it on the website and never talk to the guy again. It’s win-win.”

Sansa just shook her head and kept her stare on her coffee cup instead of on her sister. It might have counted as pouting, but frankly the situation called for it. She hadn’t dated anyone since she had broken up with her ex-boyfriend. Her _abusive _ex-boyfriend. Arya might be right about Sansa wanting a relationship, she had been dreaming about her perfect fairy tale romance since she was a little girl, but even for that it was hard to take the risk of getting hurt again. So far her strategy of avoiding hurt by simply avoiding any romantic entanglements at all had been a success. It might be lonely, but at least now she was able to believe she mattered. Sometimes sacrifices had to be made. Sansa didn’t know when she would be ready to push herself back into dating, but her sister didn’t get to make that decision for her.__

__Arya flung up her hands in frustration. “Fine. Be pissed off. Hell, blow off the date, call and tell the company it was a screw up and you don’t actually want to be involved. But if you ask me, you’re already signed up for one date. You should take it. Maybe you’ll find your prince charming and stop moping.” With that she grabbed up her coffee and stormed out of the shop._ _

__Sansa barely had a chance to feel the lance of that last comment before the bell over the shop door tinkled and Arya dropped back down into her seat. She looked around herself awkwardly before finally forcing herself to focus on Sansa.  
“Look, I’m really sorry about that, okay? You’re not moping, I know you’re not moping, I just – fuck. I just want you to be happy okay? You were always so happy. Before. And he didn’t – he didn’t break you, okay? And I just want you to have the chance to be happy again.”_ _

__Sansa felt like she had whiplash from the sudden change of direction her emotions made and suddenly tears were crawling up the back of her throat out of gratitude and pride rather than bitter hurt. Her little sister had a fiery temper that she was quick to express, but she was equally quick to apologize if she regretted her words. The quick jump from one mood to the next had never made sense to Sansa, but at least Arya was trying to work on controlling her anger a bit better. If Sansa needed more proof than her brothers and father could provide that there were good men in the world, Gendry would be more than enough with all the support he gave Arya in everything she did. Including getting a handle on her temper._ _

__Sansa reached across the table and took Arya’s hand in her own. Arya hadn’t been wrong when she said she was bad at expressing emotion, but she was trying so very hard to do exactly that. And she was still sitting here, allowing Sansa to hold her hand, without complaint. Even Arya was aware that that gesture meant something._ _

__

__***_ _

__Despite leaving the café quite at peace with herself and with Arya’s unusual ‘gift’, by the time she made it back to the apartment she shared with one of her best friends, Sansa had worked herself back into a state over being forced into dating again._ _

__Margaery, much to Sansa’s disappointment, didn’t really sympathize. She found the situation hilarious. As soon as Sansa told her she ran to get her laptop to look up the restaurant and the show while Sansa groaned in embarrassment and buried her face in one of the pillows on the couch._ _

__“I think I’ve seen a couple episodes of this, actually.” When Sansa turned to look at her, Margaery was scrolling down a page, focused on whatever she was reading. “It’s a nice show.”_ _

__Sansa sighed and sat up, stuffing the pillow in between her side and the arm of the couch as she brushed her hair back from her face. “It’s lovely. But that doesn’t mean I want to be on it.”_ _

__Margaery shook her head. “You don’t have to be. You can use the restaurant and the dating service without actually being a part of the show. They need people to fill out the background, after all.”_ _

__Sansa frowned and crossed her arms. “Well, even still.” Maybe it was a little petulant, but how embarrassing was it to ask someone else to find her a boyfriend because she couldn’t do it herself? “I don’t need to date anyone.”_ _

__Margaery nodded, her chestnut curls bouncing. “Damn right you don’t. You’ve got a great job, a nice apartment, and some pretty kick-ass friends if I do say so myself. Of course you don’t need a boyfriend.”_ _

__Sansa’s eyes narrowed in suspicion. “I hear a ‘but’ in there.”_ _

__Margaery shrugged and wiped her fingers over her keyboard mindlessly. “Arya wasn’t wrong earlier. You may not need a boyfriend, but you want one.”_ _

__Sansa huffed and turned her gaze to where her fingers tugged at a fraying thread on the sofa’s arm, ignoring the burning at the back of her throat. “Why is everyone ganging up on me today?”_ _

__Sansa could hear the exasperation in Margaery’s voice even though she couldn’t see her. “Sansa, if you were happy, none of us would be suggesting things like this. But you’re miserable. Arya said she wanted you to be happy, right? That’s all any of us want.”_ _

__Everyone kept saying that. That she was miserable, that she wasn’t happy being single. They weren’t wrong but didn’t they see how much more miserable she could be if she started a relationship and it turned bad again? If Joffrey had taught her anything, it was that happy endings belonged in fairy tales, not in real life._ _

__Margaery patted her shoulder as she walked around the couch. “Come on, let’s go to the Marché. We need come carrots for dinner tonight and the fresh air will be nice. I’ll buy you some tea.” She and grinned as she headed over to pull on her boots._ _

__Sansa sighed out a smile as she got up to join her friend, pulling on the boots, coat, scarf, and toque she had so recently divested herself of._ _

__***_ _

__The Marché had been lovely, as always. Most everything had been moved indoors thanks to the cold and the wind, but the snow covering the ground only added to the quaint charm of the square surrounded by smaller shops, one corner dominated by the larger indoor market. They had walked through the bustling building and picked up the few things they needed before venturing forth into the snow once more, just across one of the tiny streets within the square, to a little café. Margaery had made good on her promise of tea, and she had even stopped and bought Sansa a box of chocolates at the chocolaterie next door._ _

__They had taken the metro home, cooked and eaten dinner, and munched on Sansa’s chocolates, all without any more mention of dating, and Sansa was hoping she could just forget about it for a little while and relax. The two of them were curled up at opposite ends of the couch with their laptops when Margaery shattered that hope._ _

__“So, I was thinking . . .”_ _

__Sansa sighed and turned away from her computer screen. “Yeah?”_ _

__“I should, you know, as a show of solidarity . . .”_ _

__Sansa groaned and ran her forehead into the back of the couch. “Please don’t say you think you’re going to do it too.”_ _

__Margaery grinned. “I think I’m gonna do it too.” She nudged Sansa’s hip with her foot. “We’ll do it together. Come on, it’ll be fun! Don’t you want to help me fill out the application form?” She turned her laptop toward Sansa and waggled her eyebrows._ _

__Sansa sighed long and loud while she closed her laptop, set it on the coffee table, and moved to sit closer to Margaery on the couch. “Fine.”_ _

__Margaery laughed and settled the computer so they could both easily see the screen. The questionnaire seemed pretty straightforward and Sansa hoped that Arya had filled hers out well. At least there was a question at the beginning for someone to fill out if they were submitting the form on behalf of someone else._ _

__It asked about name and birthday and cities of birth as well as current residence. Questions about citizenship and marital and parental status followed, as well as questions about alcohol, drug, and tobacco consumption. Then it asked about occupation. Margaery had no qualms about listing herself as a sex shop manager and Sansa worried slightly about what job title Arya had given her._ _

__Then it asked Margaery to select three activities from a given list of completely random possible pastimes that included things like ‘knitting’ and ‘hosting dinner parties’. Unsurprisingly, Margaery was interested in neither of those hobbies. She opted for ‘eating out’ entirely because she couldn’t stop giggling once she read it, ‘hiking’ because she genuinely did enjoy short periods of alone time, and ‘social networking’ because she figured she should be honest about the fact that as much as she enjoyed hiking, she was too attached to the internet to commit to something as long-term as ‘camping’._ _

__“Okay, three descriptors. Man, this is even more random than the hobbies list. Do we think I’m ‘alpha’? What does that even mean, really? All I can think of is the dog from Up. Which, I mean, who wouldn’t want to be that dog, but still.”_ _

__Sansa chuckled hard enough she could actually feel her shoulders shaking with it. “Well let’s see, what fits you? ‘Sarcastic’, ‘blunt’, ‘judgemental’, ‘opinionated’?”_ _

__“Woah, okay. Got anything positive there, Miss . . . ‘Gossipy’?”_ _

__“Hey! I’m not gossipy!” Sansa tried to hold Margaery’s gaze as her friend stared her down, but she couldn’t manage it. “Yes, fine, I concede. I maybe sometimes am a tiny bit gossipy. Look at it this way, at least I didn’t say you should pick ‘hot mess’.”_ _

__“Oh, I may be hot my dear. But a mess I am not.”_ _

__After some continued bickering, they decided that Margaery was indeed ‘opinionated’, but that she was also ‘creative’ and ‘nerdy’ which both girls agreed was definitely a positive._ _

__The final two questions before the terms and conditions, social media links, and photo sections were longer form answers asking first about the person submitting the application and then about what they were looking for. Margaery settled in to think about those and Sansa returned to her end of the couch, picking up her own laptop again._ _

__Margaery was a lot of things, some good, some bad. But one of the things Sansa loved most about her was how easily she dealt with Sansa’s anxiety. She obviously agreed with Arya that this experience would somehow be good for Sansa, but Margaery had seen how worried she was and decided to make it a fun thing they could do together. So she would have someone to share the experience with, who knew what she was going through and could commiserate with her if she needed it._ _

__And truthfully she wasn’t all that worried about how Arya had filled out most of the form, it was a pretty basic questionnaire, and no matter how different the two of them were, Arya did understand her better than almost anyone else in the world. She even trusted her sister to paint an accurate and flattering portrayal of who she was in the long form question. But what worried her was the last question. How could Arya possibly manage to explain what Sansa was looking for in a relationship when Sansa herself could only narrow it down to ‘not Joffrey’, whatever that meant?_ _


End file.
